CHAPTER 18: THE NEXT DAY

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To be a Pessimist, or to be an Optimist

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It is the 31st of July 1992, the clock short needle is pointing at the number one, Ed was sitting in front of the fireplace, trying not to fall asleep, he looked at a girl that have books surrounding her, and grimaced.

"Hermione, you need to sleep, its past midnight already." Begged Ed, "I need sleep too, if I slept here, you can't come out."

But Hermione ignored him, she was so focused in books that practically everything surrounding her didn't exist. After Gilligan told her about the Aldrich history and Ed telling her the fate of her incarnation, she instantly bolted to the library, since she will train Occlumency tomorrow, so in the meantime, Gilligan allowed her to explore this world's section of the library, since then, it was like this.

"She has a mentality of an Aldrich I see." Said Gilligan who suddenly appeared.

Ed narrowed his eyes and stared at Gilligan, "Then let's make her an honorary member of the family." Said Ed sarcastically.

"It's like she has the curse…" Gilligan ignored Ed's comment and whispered to himself, but Ed heard him.

"What curse?" questioned Ed suspiciously, "You never told me about any curse in the family except that only ever loving one people thing."

"It's not your time yet, but it is still possible." Said Gilligan mysteriously, "But I won't tell you what that curse is, well, it's not really a curse really, it could even be called a gift."

"It's not like werewolves kind of curse right? Cause some people think the werewolf curse is a gift to them."

"No, it's not like that, just, at that time, you have to choose between knowledge, and family."

Ed eyed Gilligan suspiciously, then looked back at Hermione, Ed took a deep breath, he pointed his wand at her and wave it. Instantly the books surrounding her and the book on her hand floated and fly back to the library.

"All right Hermione that's enough." Said Ed while pulling her to the ladder.

"No, wait!" she whined. Her hands made a grabbing motion to the floating books.

"Nope, I need to sleep too you book addict."

Ed then dragged her outside of the suitcase and sat her on the chair of the study room.

"Okay Hermione, stop behaving like this, if you're still ignoring my call to go back again, I won't let you in anymore. Understood?" Ed said sternly.

Hermione nodded hesitantly, she was about to say something, but she was interrupted by Ed.

"Good, now go back to your room, what if my parents saw that you never came out of my room and report it to your parents?"

Hermione hearing this blushed, she instantly stood up and exited the room to avoid further embarrassment. Ed however, sat on the chair and sighed heavily. He sat for a couple of minutes before standing up again and walked to his bed.

"Fucking bookworm." He muttered, he then lay on his bed and drift to sleep.

The next day, Ed woke up late, his head is spinning because of him forcing to stayed late at night. He quickly showers and brush his teeth, he wore a simple blue shirt and went out of his room, he walked to the dining room, his head was still spinning, when he arrived, he saw Roger and Anna already sitting at the table. He said good morning to the two of them.

"'Morning" Ed grumbled.

He walked to the dining table and sat in one of the chair, he saw his breakfast, a simple egg and bacon. He picked up his eating utensils before he noticed Hermione coming into the Dining room, her condition was no different than him, she looks like she had a concussion.

"Good morning." She grumbled tiredly.

Everyone just hummed, and she sits besides Ed for her breakfast. They started to eat, it was a quiet meal, until Roger breaks the ice.

"So, what did you two do last night?" said Roger with a serious face, but Anna suddenly smacked him playfully.

Hermione suddenly woke up from her state of half-awake and was flustered. Seeing this, Ed had to save her from further embarrassment.

"Hermione was studying late last night, she ignored me when I said she should go to sleep, until I dragged her out of the room." Said Ed with a poker face.

Hermione nodded weakly, smiling to Roger and Anna.

"That's it?" said Roger, with a tone of disappointment.

"For Merlin's sake Roger we're still kids." Defended Ed, which made Hermione more flustered.

Roger just chuckled and continued eating. After he finished eating, he informed Ed about something.

"Right, tonight, you Ed will be coming with us to a dinner party."

Ed narrowed his eyes at the mention of a dinner party and questioned, "Dinner party?"

Roger nodded, "With a potential drill supplier, you need to learn negotiation skills if you want to continue this company, at first it was Mason's job, but I figured you need some on the field experience."

At the mention of 'Mason', Ed stiffens and stopped eating his food, 'Drill company, Dinner party, Mason, Fuck…' He cursed in his mind.

Seeing Ed's behaviour, everyone looked at him confusedly, but before they can say anything, Ed questioned again,

"This Dinner Party, you're not invited by a family called the Dursleys is it?" Asked Ed nervously.

Hermione stiffened at the mentioned of the Dursleys and suddenly got interested, while Roger shot a surprised look at Ed, much to his dismay, "How do you know that?" Roger questioned.

Ed didn't answer the question and just facepalmed, 'Fuck my life.' He cursed again. Hermione however looked at Ed with puppy dog eyes, as if asking that if she could come.

Ed just sighed, "Doesn't matter how I know, magic remember?" Ed looked at Hermione and asked Roger, "Could she come?"

Roger looked at the two suspiciously, and said, "Ed, this is company's business, we can't bring her, I'm sorry."

Ed raised his eyebrow and looked at Roger, "I can already tell you, if you go there, you either be humiliated by them, or just disgusted by their behaviour."

Hermione nodded as a sign of agreement, meanwhile Anna is looking at the two with curiosity in her eyes, and asked, "What's going on? Why would we be disgusted by them?"

Hermione looked at Ed for a second, then Ed nodded, signalling a go ahead.

"A friend of ours lived with them" Hermione said, earning a look of surprise from Anna and Roger. "They locked him inside a cupboard under a stair for eleven years, he's treated poorly there."

"They locked a child for eleven years!?" Anna shrieked, looking horrified.

"Well, the short story is like that, so if you still want me to come, she needs to go too, she's closer to him than I'm to him." Said Ed while pointing at Hermione.

Roger and Anna looked at each other before saying, "well, if what you said is true, why do we have to go to that family's home? you said we will be humiliated."

"Well," Ed smirked, "I'm here aren't I? I just want to see the man's face when he saw me and Hermione, he will instantly know that the deal is off, and we'll just talk to Harry a bit and gave him his birthday gift and go home."

Anna looked at the two intensely, making Ed and Hermione gulped nervously, then Anna sighed and said, "Yes Roger, let's just call of the deal, I don't want to involve myself to a family that locked a boy in a small room for eleven years, is that even legal? Should we go to the police?"

"It's legal, they're the only family he has left, and the boy… he has a special circumstances, so he can't go out of that house until he's seventeen." Said Ed vaguely, earning curious looks from Hermione.

Roger just sighed, "Very well, I'll call Mason about the circumstances, but we are still going right?"

Ed just nodded, and said, "Thank you."

Roger just smiled and walked off to his office to make a call. And Anna picked up everyone's dishes, put it in the sink and walked of God knows where.

Hermione then stood up, "I forgot today's Harry's birthday!" she shouted, "Ed, did you already bought his birthday gift?"

"No, I haven't Hermione." Said Ed while walking to his room, and Hermione followed beside him. "I'll ask Ashbey to buy the gift, what do you want to buy him? You can give it to Ashbey also."

"I don't know what I will give to him, I kept sending him letters, but he never answered." Said Hermione with a bit of angry tone.

Ed chuckled and said, "Well, we could just ask him why he didn't reply back tonight right.", he knows why, but he figured to let Hermione figured it out by herself.

Hermione just nodded, then she looked at Ed intensely, as if demanding something, but before Hermione said anything, Ed spoke first.

"No, if I let you in the suitcase now, we'll be late for tonight." Ed said decisively.

Hermione then mumbled dissatisfiedly about how he is not fair, and she won't be like last night, but he ignored it.

"All right Hermione, give me the thing you want as a birthday gift to Harry, and I'll ask Ashbey to buy it."

Hermione snapped out of her small tantrum and nodded, she wrote the thing she want as a birthday gift to Harry and gave it to Ed. She looked at Ed for a second and suddenly asked.

"Ed, speaking of Birthdays, when is your birthday?" she asked nervously.

Ed eyed Hermione and answered, "Hm? Oh, 19th of August."

Hermione just went silent, then entered her room, Ed then went to Ashbey and asked him to buy the things on the list Ed gave to him and wrapped it as a gift. Ashbey happily complied and went outside to buy it.

After that, Ed went missing, as in, he went to the suitcase to train, Hermione entered his room but no one was there, she called him a couple of times but no one answered, she guessed where he was and approached the suitcase, she had heard him say the password, so she tried to whisper it to the suitcase, but nothing happened much to her annoyance, she opened it using the conventional way, but it was like a normal suitcase, and the last effort she gave was knocking the suitcase violently, so Ed could hear her, but he didn't answer, making Hermione more annoyed at him.

After that she gave up and just waited in front of the suitcase, reading the available books in Ed's study room, and a couple of hours later, the sky was getting darker, and Ed came out of the suitcase, and he saw an angry bushy-haired girl glaring at him.

"Everything all right?" Ed asked confusedly.

"You entered the suitcase without me!" she said angrily, slamming the book in her hand to the desk,

Ed flinched at this and defended himself. "Like I said, if I let you enter the room, you're going to forget the time like last time."

"I will not!" she refuted.

"Yes you will, now stop this tantrum at once Hermione." Said Ed sharply, Hermione never seen this side of Ed before, so she panicked a little, "What's wrong with you? You're not usually like this." Ed narrowed his eyes at her.

Hermione noticed her behaviour and instantly calmed down, her face was red, and then she apologized,

"Sorry, I just- I don't know."

Ed eyed at Hermione for a second, 'Could it be? No, Hermione in the books won't do that kind of thing…' Ed thought, and he sighed, "Fine, just don't be like this okay? You need to get ready to go to Harry's place, Ashbey probably already bought the things."

Hermione just weakly nodded and walked to her room, then Ed took a shower and changed into something semi-formal. He combed his hair to tidy it up a bit and went straight to the living room to wait. There he saw Roger with a rather formal and expensive looking suit.

"Why'd you wear a formal suit? I thought we're just going to visit a friend then go home?" asked Ed.

"Well, we figure we'll listen to him a little bit, don't know, might be in for a surprise." Roger answered.

Ed just shrugged, "Well, your loss." Then the two walked outside to the car and waited for the rest to get out.

Ed looked at the front door with a cold face, he pondered a while about Hermione's tantrum and bizarre behaviour once she knows about the suitcase, and asked Roger,

"Roger, do you know how to differentiate between people whose acting and people whose actually sincere towards you?" Ed said with a flat tone.

Roger frowned at the question, and said, "What happened?"

"Nothing, it's just, Hermione's acting weird lately ever since I showed her my training place, it's only been a day, but she already throwing tantrums at me, demanding that I let her in that place again, like she doesn't even care about anything except that place."

Roger eyed Ed for a minute before chuckled, Ed saw this and asked confusedly,

"Did I say something funny?"

Roger stopped chuckling and sighed, "No, nothing, that's indeed worth looking into, however, we, as men won't ever know what is actually happening inside a woman's head, hell, we even sometimes don't know what is actually happening inside our head ourselves."

Roger fixed his tie a little bit, then continued, "however, based on what you describe, she might already found what she's looking for in you, maybe she's interested in you because you're good at magic and she's curious on what make you this advanced this young, so she tried to get closer to you, and once she knows it, she doesn't really care about you anymore and just wants to be in that place you're talking about. This is a pessimistic point of view."

"While from the optimist point of view, she's probably throwing tantrums at you because she's comfortable with you, she trusts you, so she let her inner personality surfaced in front of you, in her case, her mind is quite mature like you, she's smart as you said, but maybe in front of you, she let you see her childish nature."

Roger then cleared his throat and continued once again, "there's a lot of possibility Ed, maybe you should figure it out by yourself slowly. But I personally won't believe a girl like Hermione would do something like the pessimistic point of view."

Ed nodded and took a deep breath, 'too much overthinking Ed.' Ed thought, scolding himself. Then a couple of minutes later, Anna and Hermione got out of the manor, Hermione with a yellow knee length dress, and Anna with a black dress. Both of them entered the car.

Hermione smiled at Ed and sat beside him. Ed just smiled back and looked at Ashbey.

"Ashbey, did you bought the presents?" asked Ed.

"Yes master Ed, it's in the back trunk." Answered the butler.

Ed just nodded and the car moved.

On the way, Hermione was fidgeting nervously, she thought how she had acted in front of Ed, she looked at Ed intently and spoke,

"Ed…" she whispered to him.

"Hm?" Ed answered, getting his ears closer to Hermione to hear her.

"I-I'm sorry about before, I'm not usually like that in front of people, well, maybe to my parents but other than that, I'm not like that." She whispered, each words quieter than before.

"I-I'm just excited about the books a-and the training I'll get later." She continued.

"It's fine Hermione, I get it, but you have to be patient, me and the suitcase isn't going anywhere." Ed comforted her.

Hermione nodded weakly and looked towards the window of the car.

Ed eyed Hermione and sighed, 'Overthinking gets you nowhere Ed, remember that.' He scolded himself.